Safe (1995)

Gripping story with well-crafted characters

Very interesting film. Was caught on the premise when seeing the trailer but unsure as to what the outcome would be for the showing. As it turns out, it was a very good film.

Unshakable, witty and deeply felt, the film will be paying emotional dividends for a long, long time.

This movie feels like it was made purely to piss off people who want good shows

Put simply, it's probably best to describe this as a portrait of a certain type of neurosis. Some folks out there are going to relate especially well to the images in this flick. I'm reminded of Linklater's "Slacker", NOT in the sense that the two flicks address precisely the same thing, but rather that both flicks show you lifestyle choices/crises down the side lanes of otherwise normal American life. I felt the same way at the end of "Safe" as I did "Slacker": Whaddayaknow... someone made a movie about the kinds of folks I used to hang with.Haynes is a wonder. "Safe" is at the same time all these things (and no doubt a few others beside): It's a loving AND clinical portrait, a deep psychological thriller (to the extent you find it compelling), it could very well be a cautionary tale, it finds the line between straight-up narrative and documentary and dances on that line with incredible skill.If you are willing to invest your attention in an enormously artful film with no pat, happy ending--and in fact a burden of unresolved lostness-- watch it. Just be ready to ask yourself how much of Carol White there may be in YOU.

How to exemplify that Reagan's sun when he promised morning again in America was really a toxic sun, toxic for the soul, this is all the foreground you're going to need here. The film opens in '87, three years after that promise, in a sunny suburb somewhere in south California, and it's reasonable to assume this couple, with their spacious home, their well-kept garden, their ample free time, is one of many who were soothed by that promise, the promise to have a Dream, into a kind of comfortable sleep.Todd Haynes has the benefit of building upon Lynch, which is to say the option of discarding in hindsight the sexual darkness of Blue Velvet and Twin Peaks, the film opens to that effect with the woman having bland, passionless sex. This is how far sleep has numbed the senses, even desire is deadened and the nightmare has diffused into the very air itself, the smoggy air of Los Angeles.This is given to us as the woman developing some sort of allergic response to her surroundings, but the point is that we cannot know where evil is flowing from into the world, we just can't. Is it car fumes, the hair-dresser's chemicals, something off the new teal sofa they have ordered? Or is the mind conjuring the illness as the desperate means of making known the extent of the damage inside? Is it stifled instincts, stifled for too long? The point remains though, that life keeps breaking down on us and for no apparent reason, this satisfied life that should have been alright.Observant viewers will be able to link her response with the barely audible static on the soundtrack that continuously hums beneath dull day-to-day life. It is the mind humming to some malevolent tune of the fabricated world.This is taken to be resolved in a remote New-Age commune, out in the clear air somewhere in the countryside. Now we've been accustomed, ever since the Beatles traipsed all the way to India to be scammed by spiritual gurus, to view this sort of therapy as fundamentally crooked, but the leader gives some solid advice; quiet mind, beauty cultivated inside, clarity, all that Japanese gardening for the soul. At the same time, he advocates an almost paranoid retreat from the world, is complacent and satisfied, and we're shown his luxurious house that overlooks the otherwise spartan retreat. No, something is wrong here as well, and the filmmaker is smart enough to barely hint at merely another kind of toxic environment that sells peace of mind.Now so far the film's power is rhythm and pulse from the heart of this woman as she tries to cope with it herself; slow, dissipating, tiredness, plus ambiguous response to unsatisfactory reality. The husband is bland and selfish but is not a caricature, which would have significantly cheapened the thing. Nothing has been really subtle but evokes its own time and space.You have to wait till the end for the formative mechanism that gives rise to this clouded mind, the masterful touch is all Julianne's and carried alone before a mirror.Of course each patient has given his own reasons for his illness, but this one we have followed close. She finally encounters her own mirror image in that artificial womb of a room, and does she look at a real self looking to see a real image, warts and all, or does she soothe herself with another dream, another promise for morning again? This is the thing that got the ball rolling, ever since Reagan's ad one morning on TV; it would all be alright, you just had to trust someone else.Julianne Moore completely erases any presence of herself in the process, truly outstanding work.

I saw this the other day and had high hopes, having seen Far from Heaven featuring Julianne Moore which was a stunning film. On a positive note I thought it was beautifully shot and well acted. The 1980's setting was bang on, the clothes, colours and texture of the movie as accurate a picture of the decade as I've seen on film. I loved the soundtrack, reminded me of the first Terminator film. I have real problems with the narrative here, mainly because early on the film hints at something insidious or dark to come. This drives you along but unfortunately it becomes a little 'Channel 5 afternoon movie', American films about domestic dramas. The ending is a real let down..no spoiler here but it's almost as if the studio insisted on coming up with a credible reason for her ailment and the movie loses it's power.

I'm a devoted Moore fan, so how could I miss this highly-acclaimed indie film, which directed by the genius Todd Haynes in 1995 and also bestowed her the crown of Queen of indies. SAFE is an unorthodox indiewood member who has a unflinching core which dares to chart the mysterious battle between the body and soul through the dubbed "environmental disease". The concept here is an intrepid self-salvation process, in a world without any certainty, it is what we believe decides our fate, any physical phenomenons have lost all its gauges and canons. A striking truth is that nothing can save a troubled soul.I do find stark pessimism in the film, and which is scarier is that it plunges a tremendous impact on me, which in turn solidifies my brief and proves that certain films could unswervingly employ this sort of manipulative trickery. Moore is laboriously stunning for her role, a delicate doll with a determined will to pursue the cure of her unknown disease, a subtle yet multi-layered interpretation, which reminds me of a saying that "a lonely person should be disgraceful", until she eventually found the place where existed her idem genus. In the very end, she just cannot go back to her normal social life and only could survive by shielding herself inside a new egg-shaped "clean" room where she can dwell in forever.I consider the film as a modern-day allegory, it challenges its audience to face a wretched circumstance - the insecurity of our carnal figure and the lost identity of any classification. In my opinion, the gritty singularity of ourselves is the cradle of the evil side of religion, one of mine catchphrases is that: Don't be swayed easily by those around you, by what you hear and what they say; adjust yourself in a placid mode, the one who knows you best is yourself, and is yourself only.Technically speaking, the film deploys a post-apocalypse palette and a brittle score to embody an almost horrorfest-like shtick, Todd Haynes is an authentic auteur who has gut to surprise his devotees.